This was an invited talk for the Open Science Ambassadors Program meeting at the Max Planck Society, Berlin, Germany, on the 19th of September 2023. The talk stems from my personal journey into science, first, and open science, later, and it's built into three sections: Science as a social institution with values and norms Rewriting science through narratives of openness Going rogue: living alternative spaces The (more or less) transcript of the talk is also deposited as a separate text document. It's a document that more likely will be modified and updated with time.